Stiffen the dough with about 3-1/2 cups flour and use about 1 extra cup of flour to dredge the bake-board when rolling out dough and for sifting over the greased baking sheets so the cakes will come off readily.  Roll dough very thin and cut in any desired shape.  From this recipe may be made 100 small cakes.  The baking sheet (for which I gave measurements in bread recipe) holds 20 of these small round cakes.  Do all young housewives know that if dough for small cakes be mixed the day before baking and stood in a cool place, the cakes can be cut out more easily and the dough may be rolled thinner, and as less flour may then be used, the cakes will be richer?

Aunt Sarah always cut these cakes with a small round or heart-shaped cutter and when all were on the baking sheet she either placed a half of an English walnut meat in the centre of each cake or cut out the centre of each small cake with the top of a pepper box lid before baking them.

OATMEAL CRISPS

2-1/2 cups rolled oats (oatmeal). 1 tablespoonful melted butter. 3/4 cup sugar. 1 teaspoonful baking powder. 2 large eggs.  Pinch of salt.

Beat eggs, add salt and sugar, mix baking powder with oats and stir all together.  Drop from a teaspoon on to flat pan or sheet iron, not too close together, as they spread.  Flatten very thin with a knife dipped in cold water and bake in a moderate oven a light brown.  These cakes are fine and easily made.  Did you not know differently, you would imagine these cakes to be macaroons made from nuts, which they greatly resemble.

AUNT SARAH’S GINGER SNAPS

1 cup molasses, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup of a mixture of lard and butter, 1 egg, 1 teaspoonful of ginger, 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon, 1/2 a grated nutmeg, 1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in 1 teaspoonful of vinegar.  About 3 cups of flour should be added.

Dough should be stiff enough to roll out very thin, and the cakes may be rolled thinner than would be possible otherwise, should the cake-dough stand aside over night, or on ice for several hours, until thoroughly chilled.  Cut cakes small with an ordinary cake cutter and bake in a quick oven.  These are excellent and will remain crisp some time if kept in a warm, dry place.

GERMAN “LEBKUCHEN”

This is a recipe for good, old-fashioned “German Christmas cakes,” from which Aunt Sarah’s mother always baked.  She used: 

1 pound dark brown sugar. 3 whole eggs and yolks of 3 more. 1/4 pound citron finely shaved on a “slaw-cutter.” 1/2 pound English walnut meats (chopped fine). 1 quart flour sifted with 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder.

Mix well together.  Do not roll thin like ginger snaps, but about a half inch thick.  Cut out about size of a large coffee cup.  Bake in a moderate oven and when cold ice the cakes with the following icing: